Crowdsourcing as a mean of enhancing democratic engagement in the EU - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Crowdsourcing as a mean of enhancing democratic engagement in the EU

(Preliminary conclusions from the on-going ECAS study) Simon Delakorda, M. Sc. Institute for Electronic Participation

www.inepa.si/eucrowd/

Table of Content

• 1 Starting point
• 2 Issues with citizen participation in the EU
• 3 Crowdsourcing study
• 4 Methodological framework
• 5 List of crowdsourcing cases
• 6 France: Participatory Budgeting in Paris
• 7 Australia: Future Melbourne
• 8 Slovenia: Predlagam vladi.si
• 9 Preliminary considerations
• 10 Project European Citizens Crowdsourcing (EUCROWD)

1 Starting point

• Existing forums for citizen participation in the EU have proven

ineffective in bridging the democratic deficit. The crises the EU is currently facing call for more innovative forms of citizen engagement in order to re-gain their trust in the European project (1).

(1) European Citizen Action Service (2016): Towards a Crowdsourcing Pilot at the EU level: Taking Decisions with Citizens and Not for Them (Working Paper). Available from http://ecas.org/read-new-paper-crowdsourcing/.

2 Issues with citizen participation in the EU

Vir: EVROBAROMETER 86.1

• 41% of EU citizens want to influence decision-making directly.
• Up to 80% of the legislation concerning the everyday life of

citizens in Member States may be based on EU laws.

• This general feeling of distrust that translates into concrete

manifestations of anti-EU political rhetoric and strategic choices with serious consequences for the future of the European project (e.g. Brexit).

• Problems of participatory democracy at the EU level.

Vir: http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/public/welcome?lg=sl

Vir: http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/consultations/index_sl.htm

Vir: https://petiport.secure.europarl.europa.eu//petitions/sl/main

3 Crowdsourcing study

• The crowdsourcing allows people to participate in a constructive

way in debates and to learn from each other throughout the deliberation process (“Wisdom of the crowd” principle). Crowdsourcing legislation is “an open call for anybody to participate in a task open on-line (Brabham, 2008; Howe, 2008) by submitting information, knowledge, or talent. Crowdsourcing has become a popular tool to engage people in processes ranging from urban planning (Brabham, 2010) to new product design and solving complex scientific problems (Aitamurto, Leiponen & Tee, 2011)”.

Vir: http://www.inepa.si/eucrowd/project/

4 Methodological framework

• Desk research and consultation with relevant stakeholders to

identify national crowdsourcing examples;

• Definition of criteria for the analysis of the national examples;
• National crowdsourcing experience analysis;
• ‘Theory of Change’ elaboration;
• Development of a framework for piloting crowdsourcing

legislation at EU level and on an EU issue;

• Identification of questions which need further exploration and/or

verification.

Vir: http://ecas.org/read-new-paper-crowdsourcing

• The strengths and weaknesses of the crowdsourcing initiatives

were measured by ECAS using the following set of objectives:

Vir: http://ecas.org/read-new-paper-crowdsourcing

5 List of crowdsourcing cases

• 1. New Zealand: Internet Rights Bill
• 2. Philippines: Crowdsourcing Act 2012
• 3. Philippines: Magna Carta for Internet Freedom
• 4. Netherlands: Follow the Law
• 5. Finland: National Citizens Initiatives
• 6. France: Participatory Budgeting in Paris
• 7. Iceland: Crowdsourced Constitutional Reform
• 8. Argentina: Democracy OS
• 9. Australia: Future Melbourne
• 10. India: MyGov
• 11. Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Digital Participatory Budgeting
• 12. Estonia: Democratic Proposals
• 13. Finland: Road Traffic Rules
• 14. New Zealand: New Flag
• 15. Belgium: Crowdfunding Gent
• 16. Slovenia: I suggest to the Government?
• 17. Latvia: Open Government
• 18. Germany: Maerker Brandenburg
• 19. Germany: Essen-soll-leiser-werden
• 20. U.S.: Challenge.gov
• 21. U.S.: We, The People.
• 22. California: Probate legislation
• 23. Boston: Youth Participatory Budgeting
• 24. Mexico: Crowdsourcing Constitution
• 25. Austria: Digital Agenda Vienna
• 26. United Kingdom: Open Government Manifesto
• 27. United Kingdom: You Decide – Participatory Budgeting

6 France: Participatory Budgeting in Paris

Vir: https://budgetparticipatif.paris.fr/bp/

7 Australia: Future Melbourne

Vir: http://participate.melbourne.vic.gov.au/future

8 Predlagam vladi.si

Vir: http://predlagam.vladi.si/

9 Preliminary considerations

• Crowdsourcing must be used as a complementary method to
• ther online/offline participation tools, which would ensure

greater representativeness.

• Participants’ contributions were of a higher quality, more

focused and easier to adopt when the government was in control of the central repository, mainly in terms of who could access it (e.g. registered citizens).

• Crowdsourcing projects must have solid systems in place, for

example to effectively verify that those responding are within the intended group (e.g. actual citizens and not anonymous fake accounts) and to ensure that spam contributions are removed.

• Crowdsourcing projects can increase the legitimacy of policy-

making mainly when the ideas generated are actually implemented (if not, they could backfire).

Vir: http://ecas.org/read-new-paper-crowdsourcing

10 Project European Citizens Crowdsourcing (EUCROWD)

• Project time frame: 1 September 2016 – 28 February 2018
• Project budget: 147.750 EUR
• Europe for Citizens Programme 2016

Source: http://www.inepa.si/eucrowd/

Vir: https://twitter.com/Razprave_EU

Source: www.facebook.com/evropske.razprave/

Questions & Answers

THANK YOU!

simon.delakorda@inepa.si www.inepa.si facebook.com/institut.inepa twitter.com/Institut_INePA si.linkedin.com/in/simondelakorda